Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Dramatis personae

Quid occurrit

Caleb heard some rustling, so woke everyone. Well, other than Mayhem, who was still out from the fight with the bandits. Xórin took a sniff, and didn’t know what it was, although whatever it was, it didn’t smell well. Neither Kim nor Xórin could duck out of the way.

And the troll shambled into sight.

Xórin, who was near it, took a shot, but missed. The troll moved towards Xórin, grumbling, “Stupid wife wants a fox fur.” Caleb cast a Fireball while Kim and Ash readied their shots.

Xórin dropped his bow and took out his swords, just in time to get out of the troll's claw. Kim and Ash aimed, and Caleb missed with his Fireball.

Now Xórin got out his other sword, just in time to Parry the claw of the troll. The other claw struck home, however, maiming him. Ash took a shot at the head of the troll and missed, while Kim kept aiming. Caleb cast another Fireball.

Xórin stepped back and steeled himself for the troll's next strike. It came fast, and felled the fox-man. Ash pulled out his sword and whacked the troll in its leg while Kim took a shot that the troll dodged. Caleb lobbed his Fireball and it struck true, burning the troll.

The troll turned its heed next to Ash, missing with a wild claw swipe. It swiped away Ash's blow while Kim reloaded and Caleb cast another Fireball.

The troll, seeing as it was near the pesky fire-throwing wizard, chose to take him out, but missed with his claw. Kim's next shot missed its neck, but Ash beat on its leg. Caleb, worried about the troll two yards away, lobbed his Fireball and stepped back after burning it.

Oh, did that piss it off! It took a step towards Caleb and clawed him, almost taking him down. It would have, too, had its other claw hit. Kim loaded an arrow while Ash crippled the troll's leg, taking it to the ground. Caleb fell from his wounds.

The troll tried to take down Ash but missed. Kim's arrow struck it in the neck, which at last took it down, so Ash and Kim dragged it to the campfire to make it burn before it could heal its wounds. Kóštē came away from the horses and healed Caleb. The next morning, she did the same to Mayhem and Xórin.

That evening, they made it back to the town of Mīštássun. There, they paid for healing and for their guide, and handed over the box to the elf at the Scarlet Harlot. There, they heard the hubbub that someone or something had turned Kólubbos, a seller of healing salves, into stone.

When they got to the Pantry, Dīpátōr, the son of the owner, took Caleb aside and asked him if he knew anything about making a golem woman. Caleb gave him some, ah, older brother tips. It was awkward.

Xórin got his lion hide tanned, and will wear it as a cloak.

They spent the next week training and listening for hearsay. Only Ash got more than the town gossip, as Dénnos, a sage, told him of his fighter brother Ōnpátōr who was haunting his dreams. Dénnos thought that his brother was now less than living but also not quite dead, and wanted some way to put his soul out of woe. He knew little more than that and that there was something about a pond in the swamp in the middle of a grove of white elms with golden leaves, and big black birds that flew in a flock so big it could blot out the sun.

The gang asked Villûdē the guide, and she knew about the pond. As their money was good, she took up the heroes' bid to go with them once again. As Xórin felt they needed more lore about this pond and as Caleb needed charm spells, they chose to first take a trip to the west to ask a wizardress for help: Qadūšāt, the mightiest wizard in the dale.

Res aliae

The PCs got five character points when they got to town, and there was much chatter about how to spend them. Amazingly, nobody spent them on Carousing, which was odd in light of how bad I rolled for them doing that.

The kid and the golem was an earlier use of Weirdness Magnet that I rolled and forgot to spring on the gang.

The choice to see the wizard came from me telling Caleb that he couldn't find anyone in town who knew any Charm spells (he doesn't have any Savoir-Faire (Magical) or guild rank), and her tower being one of the things I marked on the players' map.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Dramatis personae

Quid occurrit

— a bunch of bandits. The leader, a man with Stahl ears, strode forward and said, “We’ll make this easy on ya boys: how much ya got?”

To answer, Xórin leapt out and screamed, which pissed off one of the bandits. Two of them took him out with two blows. After some more blows, Mayhem cut off the head of a bandit wearing an eyepatch. A bunch of them backed off after this. Caleb burned a few, and Mayhem got into a fight with the leader, Mayhem going berserk after taking a blow (albeit by his own choice). The bandits tried to drag away Xórin, but he was too heavy, and settled for taking his swords. Ash took down a bandit, and Mayhem killed the leader before passing out.

Res aliae

We got started late again. Strange as this sounds, the whole combat took 7 seconds of game time, but we gamed it out for about two hours. Since Xórin went down almost right away, Roman, who played him, handled the bandits, which led to them using more interesting tactics.

In game time, it was about 1 in the morning, with storm clouds looming. This meant that missile fire wasn’t too effective, since each shot would take a -5 penalty.

I rolled the dice to see what would come up, and found more bandits. I chatted with the players, and they didn't seem to mind, but we're going to have another encounter to give a little more variety, and not take the whole session. Also, there's little way this group of bandits would be able to make it back in time for revenge.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Dramatis personae

Xorin, fox-man

Kim, thief

Mayhem, barbarian

Ash, squire

Caleb, wizard

Villûdē, guide (NPC)

Kôštē, cleric (NPC)

Quid occurrit

Not long after setting up camp, Xórin walked around the camp's edge, and saw a figure lying down. It didn't look like it was moving, but he beckoned the others to it. Kim took a shot at the ground near it to see if it would do anything, and it did nothing. Ash prodded it with his sword, and saw that it was the worm-infested body of an orc woman. The heroes called Kôštē out of camp to see if she could find out what killed her, but couldn't, and anything she had when she died was long gone.

The next day, they went into the swamp. They trod slowly, and at midday saw the legs of another body. They chose not to get near, as Caleb saw that whatever killed it wasn't done eating it yet, as the top half was gone and guts were spilling out of its bottom half. It plainly wasn't the ibathene or an alligator, they agreed.

The day after that they made it to the nagas' island. Cindy Bear got near the camp that night, who was cranky until Kim gave her the fee of a meal of fish. The same thing happened the next night, only with Mayhem doing the feeding.

At last, at midday the next day, they made it back to the nagas' lair. They took the stone trunk and put it on their horse's back, then spent a few hours digging up every last coin in the room filled with them. They did look through the rest of the lair, but could find nothing else. That night, Yogi came to camp, and Ash fed him. Maybe Ranger Smith was right not to feed the bears.

After that, they trod for two more days, and got out of the swamp with no mishaps. That night, however, Xórin spotted something with a mane of fur and a big need to eat: a lion. He struck the gang, who fought back, and after a few blows, the gang had a few new meals and Xórin had a new fur.

The next day, they made it back to the villages. The only thing that happened in the daytime was a pudgy woman with a wagon glared at them as they passed her. That night, they tried to stay in the little village of Lúrās, but this time, the farmers didn’t trust the wayfarers, so they had to camp outside.

While on watch that night, Xórin heard some rustling, and woke the others to have them find—

Res aliae

We broke it off there.

This took awhile to get online mostly because I’m a lazy rotter, but partly because I’ve been making a campaign wiki.